John P. Marquand - Demolition of Marquand's Summer Home

Demolition of Marquand's Summer Home

John Marquand bought a small farmhouse on a 466-acre (1.89 km2) tract of land called Kent's Island in Newbury, Massachusetts in October 1935 for less than $5,000.(perhaps because the water supply was unreliable and the home required renovation). However, by the year of his death, his home at Kent's Island had been transformed into a rambling mansion by Marquand and his second wife. The couple had made numerous additions to the original structure which held a collection of museum-quality antiques and family heirlooms; including a Gilbert Stuart portrait of a Marquand ancestor, as well as a silver tray fashioned by Paul Revere.

Marquand expressed concern for the future of his estate shortly before his death. In Marquand, biographer Millicent Bell, wrote: "He wondered what would happen to Kent's Island when he died; he willed it to his three younger children but foresaw a time when they might not want it and imagined it enduring ... under the protection of a preservation agency." Marquand's concern was not unfounded. The children sold the vast property in April 1974 for $305,000 to Massachusetts. The state maintained the mansion and kept a state police trooper there as a caretaker until 1978 when the well finally went dry. After the well dried and the home became vacant it deteriorated rapidly. By 1984, the mansion was in poor condition due to vandalism and exposure to the elements.

During 1984, a ten-year-old boy named Jeffrey Noonan wrote a letter to then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis asking that action be taken in order to begin efforts to restore the home. His letter was answered by the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. The letter effectively informed the child that there were plans to raze the building. He took the letter, pedaled a bicycle to the office of the Newburyport Daily News and asked to see the editor. The newspaper interviewed and photographed the child for a front-page story. This started a local interest in the cause to save the home of the Pulitzer Prize winner from destruction.

Newburyport Magazine re-visited the story in its Fall, 2008 edition and interviewed Jeffrey Noonan (aka Jeffrey Justice) for the article. Discussing the youth's tenacity, the writer mentioned that the state was ready to pursue the demolition by 1984. "But they hadn't reckoned with Jeffrey. The fifth-grader kept up a barrage of publicity—more newspaper stories and an interview on a Boston TV station. He went to the State House to talk to legislators."

The article also allowed for a broader understanding of the nature of the opposition: "There was a backlash, too. Noonan—now a 34-year old licensed psychic who goes by the name Jeffrey Justice—recalls an angry telephone call, possibly fueled by alcohol, from a woman who had worked for Marquand, and other comments from older Newburyporters who had not approved of the novelist's sometimes messy personal life."